DV78 and MP3 encoded CD's.

Guest

I bought a DV78 about three weeks ago and am very happy with the machine in all modes. For someone who owns close to 1,500 CD's and has significant storage issues thereof, MP3 encoded CD-R/RW performance has been a revelation, for me the playback is fine given the source. I tend to listen to 'jangly American guitar rock' (i.e. Fountains Of Wayne, Counting Crows, Weezer), and find that by ripping at 256kbps the playback gives an end product that is fairly indistinguishable from the original recording.

Purely from a CD/MP3 perspective, a few things I wasn't aware of when I bought the machine are:
(a) that the DV78 automatically puts a silence of a second or so between tracks; live MP3's do not segue smoothly and show a more than irritating silence! (note, I have 'fixed' tracks in Cool Edit Pro, deleting silences produced during the ripping process);
(b) the lack of a fast forward, rewind and random play, and finally,
(c) the way MP3 files seem to fade in when you skip through a disc.

I'm updating the firmware/software on my DV78 this weekend. My dealer has been kind enough to let me have the upgrade disc and instructions (never having done this before); the machine is currently running 4.12 L76T.

Ultimately, will this upgrade fix any of the above? Alternatively, are there any tweaks I can do to my machine to rectify these issues, or is anyone aware whether Arcam are likely to address these points at a future upgrade?